The United Auto Workers (UAW) union on Wednesday announced it launched a nationwide effort to mobilize its one million active and retired workers to support Vice President Kamala Harris in key swing states that could determine the outcome of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
UAW President Shawn Fain and the UAW’s executive board endorsed Harris in late July, and Fain has been vocal in expressing his opposition to Harris’ Republican rival, former President Trump.
“The Union’s one million active and retired members will form a core base of support for the Harris-Walz campaign and will provide a major piece of the campaign’s margin of victory in Michigan, and in key Congressional races in battleground states like Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania,” the union wrote. “In 2020, the UAW’s membership accounted for 9.2% of Biden-Harris’ votes in Michigan alone.”
Members of the UAW are concentrated in Michigan, where the union is based, as well as Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Of those states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are expected to be particularly competitive and could prove decisive in the election.
UAW FILES LABOR CHARGES AGAINST ELON MUSK AND DONALD TRUMP OVER UNION COMMENTS
The UAW didn’t outline how much it planned to spend on its election efforts, but Reuters reported a person familiar with the program said it planned to spend millions of dollars.
Wednesday’s announcement occurred after Fain met with Harris and her vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at a pair of campaign stops around Detroit last week.
UNITED AUTO WORKERS UNION ENDORSES KAMALA HARRIS FOR PRESIDENT
On Tuesday, the UAW filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk violated federal labor laws with comments about firing union workers during a Monday night conversation between the two on an X Space.
After Musk had suggested the creation of a government efficiency commission, Trump applauded him as being the “the greatest cutter” and said, “I mean, look what you do, you walk in and you just say, ‘You wanna quit?’ I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone, so every one of you is gone.'”
TRUMP SAYS UAW PRESIDENT SHOULD BE ‘FIRED IMMEDIATELY’
Musk did not directly respond to Trump’s comments. The UAW filing labor charges against Trump and Musk comes amid the union’s longstanding effort to unionize Tesla’s workforce.
Fain issued a statement calling Trump a “scab” and said that the former president “will always side against workers standing up for themselves and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk.”
Trump previously said that Fain “should be fired immediately” by the UAW and said that “every single autoworker, union and non-union, should be voting for Donald Trump because we’re going to bring back car manufacturing, and we’re gonna bring it back fast.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
Read the full article here
